A Day

I’ll tell you how the sun rose, —A ribbon at a time.The steeples swam in amethyst,The news like squirrels ran.

The hills untied their bonnets,The bobolinks begun.Then I said softly to myself,“That must have been the sun!”

But how he set, I know not.There seemed a purple stileWhich little yellow boys and girlsWere climbing all the while

Till when they reached the other side,A dominie in grayPut gently up the evening bars,And led the flock away.

Credit:

This poem is in the public domain.

About this Poem:

This version of “A Day” appeared in the 1891 edition of Poems by Emily Dickinson, edited by Mabel Loomis Todd and Thomas Wentworth Higginson. Between 1850 and 1866, ten Dickinson poems appeared in newspapers, all anonymously and likely without her knowledge.